


Dreaming a Garden

by WerewolvesAreReal



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 03:09:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13226871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WerewolvesAreReal/pseuds/WerewolvesAreReal
Summary: James Wesley has never been emotional. Sent to a juvenile facility for violent youths, he meets someone different





	Dreaming a Garden

**Author's Note:**

> I found this while I was looking through some daredevil drafts. It was the start of a Wesley-centric fic I doubt I'm ever going to work on again, but I think this section stands decently on its own.

James Wesley does not like children.

This is somewhat problematic, of course, because he is a child. At least, he is still considered a child by the standards of most people, and certainly by the standards of the juvenile facility where he's housed, which is all that matters. The guards glare when he only stands off to the side every day during outdoor-hours. 'Sociopath', they mutter, knowingly. 'Evidence of sociopathic tendencies', is the more apt phrase the psychiatrists will use. Wesley is fine with the latter, because 'evidence' is not the same as 'proof', which puts the psychiatrists at least a little higher in his esteem.

He, at least, knows he is not a sociopath.

He is certainly... Something, though. He sighs slightly to himself, tugging at an errant sleeve as the wind picks up in speed. Across the somewhat depressing courtyard, he watches the beginning of an apparent fight in half-interest. The guards don't seem to have seen it yet.

Two tall, burly teenagers are staring down at a younger boy. This one is pale-complexioned, somewhat fat, and sitting on the dead grass. His attention is focused on the ground.

He is cradling a flower.

The two boys say something. One shoves the pale child. He ignores them. The lone boy carefully uses one hand to hold the plant to his chest, then starts scooping dirt out of the ground.

The two teens glance at each other. Then, one bends down, grabs away the plant, and brutally rips it in half.

The boy stills.

Slowly, he rises to a sitting position, pushing himself up with one hand. He looks long and carefully at both of the bullies.

Wesley has seen carnage before. He has seen children punching each other, hard and sometimes very earnestly, with blood running from their noses to mingle with snot and tears.

This is different.

This is different because the boy is both brutal and mechanical, primal and terrifyingly _efficient._ Something in him, low and innate, does not hold back. He reaches, swings, and snaps a fist that whips back his opponents head. Blood arcs into the sky in thin red ribbons. Snap, swing, and more blood. The teen's mouth opens in a soundless scream, but he can't breathe enough to yell. And the boy is still punching.

When the second teen sees this, he stumbles away; but then the boy turns on him, too.

When the destruction is over Wesley watches the boy pick up his little flower-pieces. The rage falls from his face, melting away. Replacing it is aching loss, and tenderness, no less real for its quiet grief. The boy closes his eyes.

Wesley wonders what it would be like, to feel something for a flower.

He walks over. He ignores the rumpled earth and steps deliberately on the red ground, smiling politely. The boy's name is Wilson Fisk, and Wesley learns this when the boy looks up at him, cold-eyed and hard, and asks why he wants to know.

“Why shouldn't I want to know?” asks Wesley, because it seems like such a strange thing (a cliché, perhaps?) for the boy to say.

“Because names aren't important. My name isn't going to change what you're here for, is it?”

Wesley thinks about this, and finally agrees that no, it isn't.

“So? What do you want?”

Wesley looks at the hard-eyed boy with his clenched hands, dirt-stained, blood-stained.

And he says, “I want to help you plant some flowers.”

 


End file.
